Losing my album virginity
For those afflicted with a trainspottery love of music the first album you buy yourself is a rite of passage akin to losing your virginity. You remember who, what, where, and how much it cost (that last part may or may not apply to how you lost your virginity). In my case it was Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack" at the Beggars Banquet record store in Fulham and it cost me the princely sum of £2.10.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Queen are still about as unfashionable as high-waisted trousers and unlike some other pompy 70s rock bands (coughELOcough) haven't gained even a modicum of retrospective hipness. They were probably just too excessive and bombastic and recorded ludicrous things like "We Will Rock You" which was the sort of rock music they'd have played at a Nuremberg Rally. I hate the concept of a "guilty pleasure" so I don't feel the slightest bit bad about admitting that I quite liked some of their records. I still like some of them a lot, in fact. "Sheer Heart Attack" was their third album and is probably the first one where they became Queen with all the camp theatricality and stylistic dilletantism we either loved or hated them for. It's funny how while the rest of the band expanded their horizons both musically and sartorially, good ol' Brian May never stopped looking and playing like an early 70s heavy rock dude.
"Tenement Funster" doesn't sound much like a Queen record at all, probably because it's written and sung by drummer Roger Taylor and like a lot of his songs ("I'm In Love With My Car" being the most famous) has more of a gnarly tone and is quite atmospheric and edgy sounding with some very Mick Ronson-ish spacey guitar. Apparently this is a tribute to Marc Bolan (he was still alive then by the way) and has lots of glam Bolan-y imagery like purple shoes and open cars going at the speed of light. For far more than you ever wanted to know about this track, go here. Who knew it's signals were heavily flanged!
Download: Tenement Funster - Queen
Buy: "Sheer Heart Attack" (album)
6 Comments:
Yep, I have to admit it too, so I guess that makes two of us who have a little soft spot for Queen.
They did some belting tracks, and a collection their Greatest Hits vol.1 is up there with Status Quos' 12 Gold Bars for big smilie guilty pleasures.
And of all the great early albums of theirs I'd have to go for Sheer Heart Attack.
Great choice for a first album....
Mine was Never Mind The Bollocks...
Great album, but I listen to queen more than the Pistols nowadays, never thought I'd catch myself saying that 25 -30 years ago... :)
Simon
x
The great Queen album, IMHO.
My first ever album was 'Sladest' - still got it!
Well done that man. My vinyl is still boxed a year after moving from UK to NZ.. feeling very guilty about that!
BTW, here's another link that kinda fits in with your site.. http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/polari.htm
Of course there are lots more on the net.
Sisters, eh?... My first album came as a Christmas present from big sister and was Ziggy Stardust. No surprise though as I had sneaked a look in the bottom of her wardrobe and found out where my first Bowie LP was coming from! My actual first purchase was a K-Tel job - 22 Dynamic Hits! It featured Puppy Love, Sylvia's Mother, Suzanne Beware of the Devil and the still sublime Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass. I've only just found out through the glory of the web that Looking Glass were some chugging boogie American rock band for whom Brandy was a bit of a diversion, but which gave them a big US hit in 1972...
queen eh... the problem with queen is they represent every horrid git from my youth, particularly school. lancashire was a very rock place in the late 7o's and not the easiest spot for a contrary youth who liked punk AND disco and who couldn't keep it's big gob shut...
Queen, YES, then as now, but I always had it for Queen 2 absolutely love the whole bloody album, SHA would be my second choice though with Brighton Rock still doing it for me and She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Disguise) - The first album I bought was very sad - Elvis Presley, Love Letters, all my Mums fault, she was mad into Elvis and without any outside stimulation that's where I went, when I was 12 and moved up a year at school and the kids could play their own music on the 'House' stereo at Breaks that was it - i heard Deep Purple Made in Japan and that started a whole musical turnaround from Rock N Roll to Rock and Punk, thank the lord and then of course into the world of Indie (and Disco for a while when chasing girlies!)
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